Bush is With Bin Laden

"President" George Bush Jr. and al Qaida figurehead Osama bin Laden have,
since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, been involved in
an illicit love affair that has been as disgusting to behold as it has
been painful and destructive for those caught in the middle of it. Prior
to the attacks, Bush had been an unelected non-entity, sinking in the polls,
and spending as much of his time as possible on vacation. Without bin Laden
coming to his rescue, he'd have spent four wholly unexceptional years in
office then been quietly replaced.

But unfortunately for the U.S. and the rest of the world, bin Laden
did come to his rescue, in spectacular fashion. Bush grasped the
September 11th, 2001 attacks like a drowning man after driftwood. Both
factions running the administration--the neocons and Karl Rove's political
team (who make all of the real decisions)--were ecstatic at the opportunity
offered by the carnage. Within hours of the attacks, the neocons were salivating
at the prospect of using them as a cover to undertake their long-held dreams
of world domination. As the rubble of the WTC smoked, Rove was encouraging
Republicans to exploit the horror for political gain.

Bush generously repaid his Saudi benefactor. If he'd given Osama bin
Laden the keys to the treasury, he couldn't have given the terrorist mastermind
a greater gift than the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It diverted badly needed
military resources away from Afghanistan, and, as a consequence, bin Laden
roams free to this day, plotting as much mischief as he pleases. It also
made the whole of Iraq into one big recruitment poster for terrorist networks
like al Qaida, greatly increasing their numbers, which, prior to Bush's
declaration of "war," had been dwindling for decades.

Bin Laden was apparently pleased; he set out to reelect Bush to the
presidency in 2004. Just four days before the U.S. presidential elections,
bin Laden released a new videotape denouncing Bush, a move lovingly doted
upon by the right-wing press in the U.S., which had been portraying Bush's
Democratic opponent, John Kerry, as virtually a candidate of al Qaida anyway.
As author Ron Suskind just revealed in his new book ("The One Percent Doctrine"),
though, the CIA concluded that "bin Ladenís message was clearly designed
to assist the Presidentís reelection." Bush was bin Laden's boy.

And it just keeps getting better. We learned, a few weeks ago, that
Bush has actually disbanded the special CIA unit dedicated to hunting down
bin Laden, a fact about which Bush lied when questioned. When, earlier
this month, the press reported that the government of Pakistan had entered
into a non-aggression pact with pro-Taliban warlords in the north that
could make the area, bin Laden's presumed hiding place, a safe-haven for
the al Qaida leader, Bush immediately rejected the idea of sending special
forces into the area in question because--an astute reader should, at this
point, grab his jaws to avoid injury when it hits the floor--"Pakistan
is a sovereign nation." Bush is apparently pretty desperate to avoid
killing this goose, as long as it continues laying golden eggs for himself
and his party.

The Iraq invasion overturned a secular government in Iraq that had brutally
repressed Islamic reactionaries within its borders. In its place is now
the largest training camp for terrorist in the history of the world, with
an explicitly Islamic and anti-American government whose leaders are acolytes
of the ayatollahs of Iran.

The people of Iran, meanwhile, had tired of its two decades of rule
by the ayatollahs. Reform candidates had swept a series of elections in
the years prior to Bush's decision to go play "army" in the Iraqi deserts.
Even the Iranian right-wingers were beginning to co-opt the reformers'
slogans, and, while progress was relatively slow, it looked as though the
days of the reactionary ayatollahs were numbered. Thanks to the invasion
of Iraq, though, the reactionaries are now firmly back in the saddle, both
in Iran and in Iraq.

It wasn't enough for Bush to allow relations between the Israelis and
Palestinians--probably at their historical high-point throughout the Clinton
administration--to completely disintegrate--he decided he needed to help
that disintegration along. Arafat, the leader of the secular PLO, and the
Palestinians' "Nixon who could go to China" was completely abandoned by
the administration, which threw its full support behind Israeli war criminal
Ariel Sharon. Ultimate outcome: another orgy of violence, the ascension
of a Bush-style chicken-hawk PM in Israel, looking to prove his manhood,
and the election, by the Palestinians, of Hamas.

...which brings us to Lebanon.

Israel had created Hezbollah in Lebanon by its previous murderous rampage
through and occupation of that country. Hezbollah gained its political
mileage via its association with resistance to the occupation. After the
Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon dwindled. In the aftermath
of the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister last year, Syria, one
of Hezbollah's backers, finally withdrew from Lebanon, allowing for the
countries' freest elections in three decades. An anti-Syrian, pro-U.S.
government was elected (Hezbollah only managed 14 out of 128 seats). It
looked like there may finally be a future for Lebanon.

This is the country Israel has just blown to bits, with the open support
of the Bush administration. In the middle of the carnage, while administration
officials were mouthing daily apologia for the criminal actions of the
IDF, the Bush administration expedited shipments of munitions to the Israeli
Defense Forces for use in the slaughter. The Bush-backed Israeli assault
on Lebanon will probably cause the political fortunes of terrorist-supporters
like Hezbollah to rise once again, while those of the pro-Western reformers
running the government take a hit because of their inability to protect
their own population.

The Bush-bin Laden love affair has taken quite a toll on the world,
and will continue to extract a heavy toll for the forseeable future.

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